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At the age of 50, I semi-retired from traditional employment and transitioned to being a full-time artist. I have the pleasure of spending every day in Birdsong Studio doing what I love. This blog was started almost a decade ago as a public accountability mechanism for a weight loss intention. It has grown into a number of different directions over the years. I hope you enjoy it.

Traffic nightmare

A friend sent me the news that things were not going so well on the highway last night. OK, that's too polite. A friend sent me a raging rant about what was not going so well on the highway last night. Up to that point, I was enjoying my evening, reading my Kobo copy of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach on the iPad. I flipped over to Twitter - the place I go when I want to find out what's happening in the world - and discovered the world of pain that thousands of our residents were going through trying to get home after a hard day's work at site.

Based on the online chatter, it appeared that a stalled gravel truck may have been one of the major culprits in a situation that resulted in people getting home two, three, and even four hours after leaving their post at the plants. Is it possible that it stalled at 2 pm and was still sitting in the same spot causing trouble six hours later? It doesn't sound plausible, but all indicators are pointing to that conclusion.

"Not acceptable," said one resident, anxiously waiting for their spouse to get home to take their required medication.

To be clear, at this point, we have no verification of what really happened - all the factors that contributed to what turned into a slow crawl home for so many. We only have hints thanks to numerous posts and tweets that were shared last night. There is one side of the story, then there is the other, and somewhere between the two lies the truth. This could have been a more complicated picture than it appeared.

People who were inching along, idling for hours, found themselves running on fumes. More than several may have emptied their tanks and ended up pulled over, left helpless. Others broke protocol, and illegally darted down the shoulders, desperate to get moving.

Folks who had neglected to use the facilities before shoving off for the day were biologically conflicted as they needed to relieve themselves but couldn't risk ducking into the ditch for fear that the traffic would start moving again.

Citizens rushing home to tap out for their spouse, babysitter or nanny were left to beg forgiveness and say good night to their kids over the phone.

Many were heading home for a welcomed meal and a little TV before going to bed as they had to be up at 4 am to return to work. How do you think they were feeling as they rolled into their driveways at 9:30 and 10 pm? Exhausted. Frustrated. Hungry. Stressed.

We live, work and play in a culture of safety, and the picture I'm painting - based entirely on watching from a distance in the comfort of my home study in the downtown core, a short 5-minute drive from my work - is not safe, healthy or conducive to the quality of life our residents deserve.

I have no idea what exactly happened last night, or what, if anything, could have been done differently to have kept the traffic moving and mitigate the delays. This could have been a perfect storm, a series of unfortunate events that combined to clog things up tighter than a drum. Our job as elected officials is to get the information as to what exactly happened, and do everything we can within the limits of our resources to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Comments

Very well said. As one of the many who were caught in the traffic storm last night- it's refreshing to hear someone understand our frustrations and hopefully do some work to prevent it from happening again. There had to be many contributing factors to allow a stalled vehicle to obstruct traffic for so many hours, on a Thursday, during shift change. How many missed flights home? How many won't see their families for an extra day? How many extra dollars did people have to spend?

Slow traffic back to town isn't out of the ordinary on a Thursday evening but this was a bit of a shocker to put it mildly. I've read somewhere that only 35% of workers on site use the Diversified Buses to get to work. I'm amazed every morning to see just how many single-occupant vehicles are on their way to site. I'm wondering if a campaign of some sort to encourage greater bus usage may be a good idea. I've also heard people mention the idea of having a "bus-only" lane which may encourage people to consider leaving their vehicle at home in the morning if they don't really need it. Thankfully I am off work this morning but I feel really bad for my co-workers on the back shift and all the other people that had to wake up at 4am to once again make the drive out to site again this morning.

Russell ...I think that this was far from a "perfect storm of unfortunate events". In fact I believe that it was the most pedestrian of events - a stalled vehicle occupying 5 meters of a single lane. I'm not sure which branch of authority this falls under, but surely someone should have had the foresight to implement one or more of the following options:

1 - Have the vehicle towed immediately. I realize that it was a large vehicle, but there are specialized tow trucks available for these types of emergencies. As someone on Facebook succinctly pointed out, this stalled vehicle was there for 2 distinct shift changes (4:00 pm & 8:00 pm) for 4 Oil Sands plants. Larger cities have standby tow trucks on hot standby for bottlenecks and traffic pinchpoints during peak hours.

2 - Designate one of the northbound lanes for emergency southbound usage.

Russell ...I think that this was far from a "perfect storm of unfortunate events". In fact I believe that it was the most pedestrian of events - a stalled vehicle occupying 5 meters of a single lane. I'm not sure which branch of authority this falls under, but surely someone should have had the foresight to implement one or more of the following options:

1 - Have the vehicle towed immediately. I realize that it was a large vehicle, but there are specialized tow trucks available for these types of emergencies. As someone on Facebook succinctly pointed out, this stalled vehicle was there for 2 distinct shift changes (4:00 pm & 8:00 pm) for 4 Oil Sands plants. Larger cities have standby towtrucks on hot standby for bottlenecks and traffic pinchpoints during peak hours.

2 - Designate one of the northbound lanes for emergency southbound usage.

Just a comment on the bus situation, I know my husband doesn't like to get on the bus this time of the year because everyone is sick and with everyone crammed in there you are just asking for it. I would love to see an LRT that would go out to site. They are bigger than a bus so there would be more personal space for everyone. As a side note, my husband does car pool and there are at least 3 of them everyday.